The 200” Hale telescope is the forth in a series of large telescopes that George Hale envisioned and was the driving force that made those projects successful. He built the largest telescope in the world four times in a row! At the start of this project in 1938 there were several major inventions required to even make a telescope of this size possible. There are several books that chronicle the fascinating story of the construction of this telescope that are worth reading. This is a selection of photos from two visits to Palomar in the early 90’s. On the second visit I was privileged to spend three nights with astronomers as they worked on two projects related to proper motion of stars and a quasar hunt.
39, The curved track of the elevator is seen in this photo next to the emergency ladder. If the elevator fails to operate the emergency ladder is your escape route (remember 6 stories). One night I thought we would have to use the ladder because we couldn’t get the elevator to move. We discovered that one of the safety gates at the end of the elevator wasn’t closed all the way and an interlock switch was preventing the elevator from moving. Notice that the windscreen is up in this photo because the shutters were open.
39, The curved track of the elevator is seen in this photo next to the emergency ladder. If the elevator fails to operate the emergency ladder is your escape route (remember 6 stories). One night I thought we would have to use the ladder because we couldn’t get the elevator to move. We discovered that one of the safety gates at the end of the elevator wasn’t closed all the way and an interlock switch was preventing the elevator from moving. Notice that the windscreen is up in this photo because the shutters were open.